Tuesday, December 4, 2012

So Republicans have to realize that they are going to cave on tax rates.
The only question is what they get in return. What they should demand
is this: That the year 2013 will be spent putting together a pro-growth
tax and entitlement reform package that will put this country on a sound
financial footing through 2040.

Republicans should go to the White House and say they are willing to see
top tax rates go up to 36 percent or 37 percent and they are willing to
forgo a debt-ceiling fight for this year.

This is a big political concession, but it’s not much of an economic
one. President Obama needs rate increases to show the liberals he has
won a “victory,” but the fact is that raising revenue by raising rates
is not that much worse for the economy than raising revenue by closing
loopholes, which Republicans have already conceded.

In return, Republicans should also ask for some medium-size entitlement
cuts as part of the fiscal cliff down payment. These could fit within
the framework Speaker John Boehner sketched out Monday afternoon:
chaining Social Security cost-of-living increases to price inflation and
increasing the Medicare Part B premium to 35 percent of costs.

But the big demand would be this: That on March 15, 2013, both parties
would introduce leader-endorsed tax and entitlement reform bills in
Congress that would bring the debt down to 60 percent of G.D.P. by 2024
and 40 percent by 2037, as scored by the Congressional Budget Office.
Those bills would work their way through the normal legislative process,
as the Constitution intended. If a Grand Bargain is not reached by Dec.
15, 2013, then there would be automatic defense and entitlement cuts
and automatic tax increases.

In
other words, Bobo wants to make sure the middle class in America is
destroyed, long after he's dead, and that it never rises again.

To get debt down to the levels we're not talking about trillions in spending cuts, we're talking about tens of trillions
in spending cuts. 40 percent of GDP would be $6 trillion, from the $16
trillion we're at now, and it require not just balancing the budget and
eliminating deficits, it means running up a surplus big enough to pay
off the debt through either massive tax increases or massive spending
cuts, or both. At the very least, it would mean balanced budgets until
at such time the GDP magically grew large enough so that $16 trillion
WAS 40% of the GDP in 25 years. Raise your hand if you think America's
GDP is going to triple or so in 25 years with huge cuts on the menu in
basic education and infrastructure.

Sure it will. Laffer Curve!

Bobo's just evil, and it sure doesn't matter to him if the middle class burns. He's a rich snothead with a cushy columnist job.

Frankie Muniz, known to most of us as Malcolm from Fox's Malcolm In The Middle, has suffered a mini-stroke. Doctors don't have any reasons yet, but friends did the right thing and took him in when he had a hard time speaking and understanding what was spoken to him. We may well find that saved his life, because like a heart attack, failure to understand the symptoms and denial play a huge part in survival.

Muniz is very young, only twenty-six. His band was scheduled to tour starting this week, that's clearly going to be put off indefinitely while Muniz is under observation.

On a side note, it's nice to be back. I was going to drop in this week anyway, but when you get a headline opportunity like that, you take it.

Actress and Democratic party activist Ashley Judd is at least considering taking a crack at Old Age Mutant Nimrod Turtle's Senate seat in 2014...at least, that's what Politico seems to believe. Take that with an entire planet made of salt.

The Hollywood movie star and eighth-generation
Kentuckian is seriously exploring a 2014 run for the Senate to take on
the powerful Republican leader, four people familiar with the matter
tell POLITICO. In recent weeks, Judd has spoken with Sen. Kirsten
Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) about the possibility of a run, has discussed a
potential bid with a Democratic pollster and has begun to conduct
opposition research on herself to see where she’s most vulnerable in the
Bluegrass State, sources say.

Whether Judd jumps into the race remains far from certain. She’s
reportedly also weighing whether to wait until 2016 to instead take on
freshman Sen. Rand Paul, sources say.

But if Judd does become a candidate, she would be the biggest
celebrity to run for the Senate since Al Franken’s successful 2008 bid
for the Minnesota seat. And her entrance would add a level of star power
to a race that was already poised to be the highest-profile in the
country with the Senate Republican leader up for a sixth term in 2014.

“She is doing all the things that a serious candidate exploring a
race should do,” Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) told POLITICO after speaking
with her. “I think there are a lot of people, and I was one of them, who
wanted to let her know that her candidacy would be an exciting prospect
for us. That’s what I wanted her to know. A lot of the labor unions,
they were telling me that too.”

Considering getting rid of Mitch (or Rand Paul!) is pretty much my top local activism priority right now, and that Judd is light-years more progressive than any of the current Kentucky Dems being mentioned as being sacrificed to McConnell, I figure the publicity would at least give her a shot of winning.
We'll see how serious Judd is about this prospect, but I have to say it's not like she could do any worse than the Turtle. She's no slouch, either, possessing a degree in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. That makes her more than qualified in my book for the office.
Go for it, Ashley. This blogger has your back...but her pro-environment stance on coal and mining makes me think she's going to have a very, very difficult road ahead.

Contributors

ZVTS Mobile Version

About ZVTS

With Republicans controlling the House and Senate and President Obama coming to the end of his second term in the White House, there's still plenty of Stupid to fight on all sides with a crumbling global economy imperiling the world, two seemingly endless wars, a federal government nobody trusts or believes in, global climate change putting us on the brink of destruction and a Village media that barely does its job on even the best day.

Needless to say there's a lot of Stupid out there still coming from both political parties, when we need solutions.

Zandar's Tip Jar

Subscribe To ZVTS

Podcast Versus The Stupid!

It's ZVTS, now in a 60-minute podcast!
Get your Zandar and Bon every Saturday and Wednesday!
Also, click on the iTunes button to put the show on
your iTunes podcast list and take us with you!
Or, check out the episode archive page!